India Drives Increase in Global COVID-19 Cases - WHO

India is driving the increase in global COVID-19 cases after a 49 percent rise in one week, says information from the World Health Organisation (WHO).

The world’s second-most populous country also reported a weekly 81 percent increase in COVID deaths.

Most regions reported decreases in the number of new COVID cases amid vaccination programs. But South-East Asia has the highest relative increase in both cases and deaths, says WHO.

Cyprus also reported a rise in new deaths.

Global COVID-19 cases face 10 variants

Judging by the tidal wave of COVID-19 cases in India, the new variant discovered at the end of March is responsible for the immense surge. Titled B.1.617 - or the India variant - it is the 10th variant discovered within 14 months.

The latest developments are humanitarian and medical emergencies in India. There are hundreds of thousands of new cases per day.

At least one of the India virus mutations escapes human immunity, say scientists.

COVID deaths Cyprus

Lockdown continues and the number of COVID deaths in Cyprus rose to 303 after two people died yesterday, said the health ministry.

Hospitalisations remain high at 292, out of which 73 are in serious condition.

Another 760 cases were confirmed by rapid test on April 28th bringing the total cases to 63,720, according to a health ministry bulletin. Contact tracing of active cases accounted for 160 of the new cases and another four cases were confirmed when passengers in Larnaca and Paphos airports were tested.

The highest transmission rate is in Larnaca where it has reached 1.45 percent.

Does the COVID-19 vaccine work against UK variant?

Real-world evidence points to high effectiveness against asymptomatic infection from the COVID-19 UK variant, said WHO. A study in the UK reported no difference in the effectiveness of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine against the UK variant compared to other variants.